Touch of Fate
by NarcissaTheSecond
Summary: Amelia Warren was on flight 815 when it went down. Just like everyone else, she's trying to figure out how to live on their new island home, but with new threats showing themselves everyday, and everyone fighting to be top dog, it's proving rather difficult.
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

"Hey, are you awake?" She felt a light slap on her cheek and the sun assaulted her retinas as she tried to open her eyes. She lifted a hand to shield her face and, turning her face to the side, opened her eyes to see a man with fairly long, dirty blonde hair and clear blue eyes looking down at her with concern. "Wakey, wakey, Red. You didn't chose a good place to fall." His voice came to her as it would if they were underwater, fuzzy and muffled. She had to watch his lips closely to make out what he was saying.

"Fall?" Confused, she was beginning to focus in on her surroundings. She was laying on sand and, as her hearing began to come back, she knew there were a lot of people around her somewhere. "What-I was on a plane?"

"We all were," The man said, and he moved towards her, placing an arm beneath her legs and one behind her head. It didn't occur to her to ask why he couldn't help her up so she could walk. There was something very wrong with her head and she could feel a pain beginning just behind her ears as she came to her senses. "Come on, Red, I gotta get you away from this plane before the whole thing goes up and takes us with it."

As she was lifted, she let her eyes swoop around the area and the sight that met her was like something out of a nightmare. There were people crying, screaming, bleeding. There were a lot of people laying on the ground, motionless. _They're sleeping like I was,_ She thought. "You've got to put me down," She told the man carrying her, "Go and wake those other people. They need help. There, that man with the white and red jumper...or that woman with the funny neck..."

As they moved away from the place he'd found her, she saw more and more of these people and the situation only seemed to be getting worse. Her head hurt and there was now a funny pain in her side somewhere, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was. "I'm tired." She said, her eyes rolling back in her head as she tried to force herself to keep them open. "Who are you?"

"I'm Saw-uh, James. I'm James." He said, finally dropping to his knees and placing her down on the floor. It was cooler here and as she looked up, she realised it was a lot more green. There were less people. They seemed to be in a forest.

"Mia." Was all she could say before her soft bed of leaves and flowers claimed her and she gave into the bliss of unconsciousness.

* * *

**Yes, it's short. It's called a prologue for a reason dearies. **  
**I'm halfway through season 2; I got the complete collection for christmas and I thought, why not start a 'fic. ****Next chapter shall be up soon.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter One**

Mia's heels hit the floor gently, barely making any noise but still managing to scare a few small members of the animal kingdom who had taken refuge in the bushes around the mango tree she'd been climbing. She gathered up the fruits she'd knocked down, making a sort of basket for them out of her shirt. They'd been here for long enough now that she knew just how many to gather because there were a few people who didn't _like _mangoes, not since they'd discovered all of that Dharma stuff, suddenly the organic island food wasn't good enough for them, and if she picked too many in one day, they'd just end up going bad.

She made her way back to the beach, dropping the fruit off with Rose when she arrived there.

"You alright, dear?" The woman asked and she nodded, banging her hands together to get rid of the dirt left on them from the fruit that had hit the ground. "How's your side? Jack told you to take it easy."

"I've been getting fruit for two weeks now, Rose. My side is fine. Healing up nicely, see?" She lifted her shirt to reveal an angry and jagged pink mark that looked like it had been hastily and clumsily stitched up and would scar pretty badly. It was the war wound Mia had gained from their less than gentle landing on the island. She'd had a rather large piece of metal stuck in her side. But it _was _healing and, Rose judged, didn't appear to be infected in anyway. Rose knew she'd heal just fine, as her cancer had, as Locke's legs had. But it didn't hurt to worry. Not everyone healed.

"Well, thats good to hear. Thank you for the fruit, Mia." Rose nodded, picking up a few pieces and making to cut it. Mia nodded, taking one for herself before wandering up down the beach towards the waves. She glanced around. Today was one of the more uneventful days, one of the boring ones. She wasn't complaining. It was nice that no one was in a panic because of 'The Others' or the _monster _which apparently lived in the jungle and knocked down tree's. Mia had been sleeping when that particular event had happened, but everyone else swore by it. _Maybe it's a dinosaur_, she joked, smirking to herself as she slipped off her Vans and stepped into the cool water. The waves lapped, gently, over her feet and she tilted her head back, soaking in the sun that hovered overhead.

"Working on your tan, there?" Jack's voice came from behind her and she turned to see him emerging from the jungle with his handy rucksack on his back, as usual.

"Not much else to do around here, Jack." She shrugged, turning back to the view in front of her. "Nothing but tanning and panicking and waiting, right?"

Jack didn't speak. Instead, he stood at her side, watching the water with her, glancing upward at the occasional gull flying overhead. Mia was slightly uncomfortable around him and kept expecting him to make conversation. There was something about Jack that made her uneasy. Maybe it was his authorative position, or the age difference between them. She was just twenty and she put his age in his mid-thirties. She respected him as a leader, but she hadn't been active to elect him, as many of the others had. He hadn't seemed to _want _the position and she wondered how someone who was so reluctant to take leadership could do right by everyone and do it effectively. However, he'd been doing pretty well so far so she hadn't said anything. When ten minutes passed without either of them speaking, she decided to recycle her earlier conversation with Rose at an attempt to break the metaphorical ice.

"Wound's pretty much healed." She said, glancing at him and nodding. He bent down slightly and lifted her top and nodded.

"Yeah, it looks pretty good. I wouldn't do anything too physically demanding just yet though. Might rip the stitches." She smiled like she agreed, deciding not to mention her tree-climbing antics of the morning.

"Right-o, Doc." He dropped her t-shirt and glanced up the beach. Following his gaze, she saw his eyes land on Kate and smirked to herself. "And here I was thinking you came to see little, old me." She said, knowingly and he made a noise that was half a sigh and half a laugh as he turned back to look at her.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Mia looked pointedly at Kate. It was as plain as the nose on her face that there was something going on between the two of them, whether it had yet crossed the theoretical boundaries into literal terms yet, she didn't know but from Jack's current actions, she was guessing not. She walked across him, slowly edging her way down the beach towards Kate, and gestured for him to follow.

"Did you actually come to speak to me, then, or to ogle the pretty prisoner?" She teased. Apparently, he was ignoring the second part of her queston.

"I came to talk to you about the hatch." That caught her attention. "Well, just to tell you that Locke asked for you to go down there. There's something that _he _wants to speak to you about."

"Right," She nodded, her face now set in a serious expression. "OK, I'll head down there now." She stepped back a few paces before turning to move up the beach.

"Oh, before I forget, Kate!" She called out, turning around. "Rose wanted me to ask if you'll collect some fruit, please? Jack, why don't you help the girl out."

Kate nodded, apparently not seeming to suspect anything, but Mia caught sight of Jack's exasperated look in her direction as she turned and ran up the beach, fighting against the sand beneath her feet. It hit the back of her bare legs and she reminded herself to try and find some longer trousers in the Hatch, or to ask Kate if she had any spare. She burnt on days like today and she froze when they had torrential rain, which they'd been having less and less lately. It might be good for her vanity, but it wasn't good for their hydration.

* * *

When she got down into the Hatch, she glanced around and found herself unaware of her surroundings. She'd only ever seen the Hatch from ground level and from up there, it just looked like an endless black hole.

"Locke?"

"Down here, Mia."

Following the sound of his voice, Mia found herself in a series of rooms which looked like relatively comfortable living quarters. There was even a sofa. Locke himself was in a room, sitting at a computer.

"Got wi-fi?" She joked as she walked in. He turned on his chair to look at her and she wondered over to look at the computer screen. It was blank, except for a flashing green cursor. "So, what do you want?"

"You're not going to ask about this?" Locke said, pointing towards a row of numbers on the wall. She watched for a moment as 25 turned into 24 and then glanced back at him, shrugging.

"Figure you're going to tell me since I'm assuming there's nothing else interesting down here that would need my attention?"

Locke regarded her for a moment before his aged face broke into a slight smile. "You're smart, Mia. But more than that, you're resourceful. You can make your own decisions about who you do and don't trust. I hope I made the approval list."

"Where are you going with this?" She asked him.

"Up on the Hatch, before we blew it open, there was a list of numbers. 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42. Those numbers mean anything to you, Mia?"

She shook her head, frowning at him. "No? Should they?"

"Well, not necessarily." The numbers ticked down past 15, Mia wondered, idly, what was going to happen when they reached zero. "Just wondered." He got up and walked slowly over to the sofa, hitching up his trouser legs before sitting down.

Mia regarded him, confusedly. "That's it? You called me down here to ask if a few numbers meant something to me?"

Locke's eyes stayed on hers. She raised her eyebrows, a puzzled smile gracing her lips. "I don't get it..." Behind him, Mia saw the numbers tick down to ten. Locke didn't seem to be doing anything about it.

"Locke, what's going on?" She asked, turning on the spot to try and locate where the noise was coming from. He was frustratingly still in his chair and Mia felt her irritation starting to grow. Why wasn't he doing anything? "John, this isn't funny!"

Behind him, the numbers ticked down to five and, in her head, she could hear a voice counting down when something in her mind clicked. It happened quickly. She frowned at Locke and then dived into the seat he'd recently vacated, her fingers punching in the numbers he'd just told her not a moment before. "4...8...15...16...23...42." She slammed down the button in front of her and watched the numbers flutter up again, finally coming to a halt at 108. She let out a breath and turned to look at Locke, seated on the sofa. He was smiling, widely, but she could feel her heart racing.

"You also work well under pressure."


End file.
